Charles Babingtonnedra Pickler on September 13, 2012TweetFacebookLinkedInGoogle PlusCommentsPrintMore from BusinessweekScott Brown, Wall Street’s Hope to Stop Elizabeth WarrenAt Apple, On the Verge of Another iPhone BlockbusterEADS and BAE: a Giant in the MakingGetting the Most Out of Your MBA ProgramFive Companies With a Huge Stake in the iPhone 5WASHINGTON (AP) — With a beloved ambassador dead and anti American turmoil in Arab nations spreading, the presidential candidates are challenging each other on their foreign policy credentials and on who would provide the steadiest hand in a crisis.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are trading tough words over the handling of foreign attacks on US diplomatic missions in the Middle East, injecting foreign policy into a presidential campaign that has focused on a sour economy.
At a rally Thursday in northern Virginia, Romney was expected to argue that the upheaval abroad showed the need for more American strength on foreign and domestic matters.
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Romney has suggested that Obama is weak and didn’t react quickly enough to condemn attacks on US missions overseas.
He then went on to defeat Republican nominee John McCain in an historic election victory, and was inaugurated as president in January 2009.
Democrats have responded by suggesting that Romney is reckless and untested as a world leader, with Obama accusing him of having “a tendency to shoot first and aim later.
In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” later in the day, Obama said the episode showed Romney’s penchant for having “a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”.
“Obama’s campaign has urged its surrogates to avoid publically politicizing the developments in the Middle East and to temper their criticism of Romney’s response as the situation unfolds. The president’s team has no plans at this point to air ads on the subject.The campaign barbs came as protesters angered by an anti Muslim film from a California filmmaker took to the streets and attacked a third US mission this week. On Thursday, hundreds of demonstrators chanting “death to America” stormed the US Embassy compound in Yemen’s capital and burned the US flag, replacing it with a black banner bearing Islam’s declaration of faith — “There is no God but Allah.
“Those protests followed attacks in first in Egypt, where scuffles persisted Thursday between police and protesters near the US Embassy in Cairo. They then spread to Libya, leading to the death of American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the US consulate. The Obama administration is dispatching two warships to the Libyan coast, ready to respond to any mission ordered by the president, who vowed Wednesday that “justice will be done.
“Romney responded by criticizing Obama for having “a hit or miss approach” on foreign policy and tried to blame the president for an early statement from the embassy in Cairo that criticized the film as protests were forming. Romney incorrectly said the statement came after the embassy’s grounds had been breached and added that the president is responsible for the words that come from his diplomats around the world.”.
They clearly sent mixed messages to the world,” Romney told reporters while campaigning Wednesday in Florida. “The statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to an apology and we think was a severe miscalculation.
Romney blasted the initial statement from the US Embassy in Cairo as disgraceful and “akin to apology,” adding later, “It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”.
“Obama responded to his rival in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” later in the day. “It appears that Gov.
Polling data is showing that President Obama got a huge bounce from the convention and that Obama’s favorability ratings are on the rise, including a ten point lead in the state of Michigan according to the Detroit Free News.
Some Republicans with experience in national security matters questioned the GOP candidate’s handling of the events and top Republican leaders in Congress did not echo Romney’s remarks.
” Asked about Romney’s remarks, he declined to answer and walked toward his office in the Capitol.Romney is not acting like a candidate in damage control mode, despite criticism in some political and foreign policy circles for the tone, substance and motives of his response. He strongly defended his stance during a news conference and, ever since, his campaign has sent around testimonials from commentators and news outlets that say Romney was right to question the response by Obama and his administration.Romney advisers concede that it was difficult to follow the chronology of the events in Libya late Tuesday — especially given their lack of official security briefings. Advisers said there was a sense in the campaign that Romney needed to be decisive and swift in his response to distinguish himself from the president’s tone — which Romney calls apologist — on some foreign policy matters.McCain agreed the embassy response was weak and accused Obama of compromising American influence around the world.”.
Romney didn’t have his facts right,” he said. Aides said Mr Romney had wrongly suggested that the Cairo embassy statement condemning efforts to incite Muslims was issued after the violence had begun; it was issued before the violence unfolded. The White House also rejected assertions that the administration was apologizing for America.. “our tendency is to cut folks a little bit of slack when they’re in that circumstance, rather than try to question their judgment from the comfort of a campaign office,” he said.. Other Republicans questioned Mr Romney’s timing. Rep. Peter King of New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Mr Romney had a legitimate point but made it at the wrong time.. Rushing to criticize the administration, he said, “injects it into the political debate, and to us, when there’s a crisis unfolding, it can be counterproductive to become part of an intense partisan debate.
We’d like to see the president of the United States speak up once for the 20,000 people that are being massacred in Syria,” McCain told NBC’s “Today” show.Liz Cheney, who worked was a senior official at the State Department while her father was vice president, said in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Obama has weakened America on the economy and has “an even more dismal national security record.
That night, during a rally in Las Vegas, the president said he had a message for the rest of the world: “No act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world, and no act of violence will shake the resolve of the United States of America.”.
Nicole Hansch is a business journalist based in Sydney, Australia. Nicole has a passion for financial markets and breaking news stories and loves writing about business news, stock market, and economic opinions that matters most to its audience. Nicole spends a lot of time discovering and researching latest financial markets and industry news stories in order to make sure the latest and greatest stories are brought to you first on BigBoardNews.com.
